


Your Past is Just A Story

by leashy_bebes



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-25
Updated: 2013-01-25
Packaged: 2017-11-26 19:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/653581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leashy_bebes/pseuds/leashy_bebes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A talk show is promising a tell-all piece into the life of one of New York's very own Avengers. It's not who they expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Past is Just A Story

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on an LJ comm that I can no longer find :\ Sorry about that.
> 
> Thanks to isisanubis for the beta.

It starts on a Monday. They're in SHIELD for a briefing and when they're done, Fury says, "Stark, a minute."

"Aw, what the hell," Tony bitches under his breath. "I haven't even done anything wrong for like, a _week_ , at least."

"Sit your ass down, Stark."

"Ugh. I'm gonna bill you for this. Out of hours consultancy rates. Someone get me pizza," Tony calls as the door closes behind them.

Clint doesn't think much of it, because Tony pissing off Fury is hardly new. It seems like everyone else feels the same and they head off. When they get back to the mansion Steve, because he is basically their mom, starts ordering food. Clint's grabbing a few beers from the cooler when they hear Bruce calling from the TV room.

"Uh. Guys? Guys, get in here."

The TV is paused on an advert for some chat show and Bruce hits play once they've all gathered around. It's all pensive single-note piano crap overlaid with the show's host, a smiley blonde, telling how they have an exclusive, compelling, blah blah blah, tell-all story of the unexpectedly unhappy childhood of one of New York's own Avengers. Clint exchanges a look with Natasha, who's already whipped out her phone and is texting so fast her thumbs look blurred.

"What is the purpose of such a television show?" Thor asks.

"Buddy, I wish I knew," Bruce says with a sigh.

The ad is only short but promises more information ahead of the show airing on Friday, which will offer 'the full story of how an unhappy, neglected child became a super-hero'. Clint's heart is pounding in his ears but nah, surely not. No one's that interested in him anyway, right? _Oh, Jesus Christ_. When he thinks of some of the things they could have dug up – 

Clint's saved from his impending freak-out when Tony walks in as the ad draws to a close, saying, "Hey, guys. Fury wanted to talk to me about – oh. That, actually," he says, nodding to the TV as Coulson slips unobtrusively into the room behind him.

Steve turns one of those tragic 'what do you mean the world is not all apple pie and forgiveness, I'm sure I fought a war for apple pie and forgiveness' looks on Tony and asks, "That's about you?"

"So Fury thinks, yeah."

"How – how would they even start to get that kind of information?" Bruce asks.

"Disgruntled nanny?" Tony suggests. "I was a biter." He seems to catch on to their looks and scoffs. "People, c'mon, simmer down. I haven't had any secrets since I was about seven."

And Clint supposes, yeah. It fucking sucks, but if it had to happen, better it happen to Tony than to someone with an actual, functioning sense of shame. Or, he thinks, exchanging another glance with Natasha, someone who relies on secrecy rather than exposure. 

"We won't watch it," Bruce says loyally.

"Are you kidding?" Tony demands. "We're gonna watch it together. You can all play spot the bullshit and I'll award prizes for the winner. Good times."

*

The ads run for a week and it's the typical shit, gradually escalating from unhappy childhood to teenage promiscuity, to run-ins with the law ("I was never actually charged," Tony says piously). Life goes on as normal and no one except Tony is surprised that Steve is more bothered than anyone else.

Even Tony's a little rattled on Thursday though, the day before the show is due to air, when the ads start trailing the hired shrink part of the show, where some hick from the University of Outer-Buttfuck Montana talks about how it must shape someone to 'weather abuse and rejection again and again, never mind the near-constant violence he was surrounded by'.

"Fucking bullshit!" Tony snaps, sounding annoyed by the whole thing for the first time.

"We have a plan in place to have the show pulled from the air," Coulson offers.

"No," Tony says, recovering himself in an instant and Clint kind of admires his ability to not give a single fuck. "No, they're stretching the weapons tech thing. I'll have been raised doing drills 'til I could arm a nuke in five seconds flat. This is gonna be awesome. We'll make popcorn, it'll be fun. And I can sue for defamation after. My dad never laid a hand on me."

Alarm bells should have sounded right then, but Clint was too busy thinking he was like 75% certain Tony said that last bit entirely for Steve's benefit and oh my god would they ever pull their heads out of their asses and just jump each other already?

*

Which is how Clint finds himself sandwiched between Thor and Steve when the 'exclusive' starts unfolding onscreen. Tony's true to his word; there is popcorn. There is a fuckload of booze, too, and Tony is already well into that by the time the show starts. He heckles the opening credits, critiques the skills of the host's plastic surgeon, but shuts up when the panel gets introduced. Clint has the feeling he's noting names. As well as Smiley Blonde Lady, there's two more women and a guy, talking in front of a large, mostly female audience.

"Journalist, journalist, ex-girlfriend, journalist, ooh, failed blackmailer, hey handsome, journalist," Tony says as the camera pans the audience.

After a little more waffle about their _exclusive_ , Smiley Blonde Lady launches into the show properly. Clint sees Tony lean forward in his seat, and Clint's sure he's looking for the first hint of something to sue their asses over.

"Born to an alcoholic father, and a drug-abusing mother – " Smiley Blonde Lady says dramatically.

"That's a stretch – " says Tony, who seems determined to provide a DVD-style commentary on the whole thing. "Abuse is such a loaded term, and anyway, Valium is barely a drug at all, right? Back me up, somebody."

"No arguments here," Bruce says from where he's sprawled on a bean bag.

" – it's fair to say opportunity never really knocked – " the presenter continues on-screen and that – that doesn't fit. Opportunity batters down Stark's door on a fucking daily basis, whatever Richie Rich issues he picked up along the way.

Natasha's obviously thinking the same because she leans forward in her chair and she snaps out a pre-emptive, "Shut up, Stark."

"Today we are thrilled to share with you the true story of Hawkeye. The man behind the archer, so to speak."

The world narrows to a dark tunnel and a heavy ringing starts up in Clint's ears, air going thick in his lungs. No. No fucking _way_.

On screen, Blondie turns towards the woman Clint recognises as the psychologist from the adverts.

"That's right, Marie," the headshrinker says. "The life Clint Barton endured was both remarkable and tragic. Almost unbelievable at times – "

"Of course, Clara. But our sources – "

"Oh, impeccable, of course. I meant more unbelievable that he survived, let alone was deemed psychologically suitable for something so high-intensity as The Avengers."

She hands back to _Marie_ , who says with a cutesy smile that she's going to _try_ to give them an overview. Clint is frozen, his childhood, his fucking _life_ unspooling for everyone to see in the form of medical records and social services interventions and police reports. Clint isn't like Stark, doesn't know the words to make a joke out of this. By the time they get to 'orphaned at age six and left to the care of the state, Barton's troubles were far from over' Clint has had about five times more than enough. He unfreezes, carefully not looking to see who's staring at him and who doesn't dare to look before he leaves the room.

Behind him, he hears Natasha say, "Turn that shit off," and someone (Steve or Bruce, Clint can't tell over the roaring of his pulse in his ears) says softly, "I never knew."

*

Clint reels down the wide hallways, barely seeing them. Clint's a fan of Stark's mansion because hey, it's like living in a five star hotel for free. What's not to love? Right now though, he wishes they'd stayed in the tower, because it'd be so much easier to disappear into the city from there. Instead, he goes to the shooting range and starts a practice.

The first few shots, his hands shake horribly. It only translates to maybe half an inch off target, but that's bad enough. If he's not the guy who never misses, then he's the guy getting dissected in a national TV show.

_Damaged goods_.

Before Loki, before Budapest, before SHIELD, even before the circus, that is what Clint has always been, and it's pounding like a bassline in his head right now. And okay, so it's hardly news to anyone, least of all to himself. And it's not like being a fuck-up precludes membership of The Avengers – quite the opposite, it sometimes seems. 

Stark drinks like a fish and freezes up or lashes out at the mention of his father, or his company, or Potts (or anything he doesn't want to discuss right this minute because he is a spoilt brat, in Clint's justifiably un-humble opinion). As for Bruce, well, his whole _thing_ is tied into his raging (pun intended) psychological issues. Steve's a good guy, but Jesus, Clint's never seen anyone so close to crippled by loneliness and loss. Even Thor, who Clint has liked from the moment he first saw a mud-splattered figure tossing SHIELD agents through the air left and right, is a bundle of daddy-and-sibling issues in one disturbingly puppy-like package. And Natasha, well, Clint thinks that between himself and Coulson, they maybe understand a fifth of Natasha's crazy. 

So yeah, if he's a fuck-up, then he's in good company. But to have it laid out like that... Sure, he can guess at why Natasha takes even fewer prisoners than usual where teenage victims are concerned, and he can dig why Hulk is never far away when a sweet, good-hearted woman is in danger. They all have their triggers, their paths that have led them to this, to this fucking group-psychosis or whatever the fuck they call a team these days. But Clint doesn't _know_ , because it's none of his fucking business. Just like it is none of anyone's business about his mom or his dad or the fact that no one ever tried to reach out to Clint until it was way, way too late. And okay, Natasha (Clint is going to think of something awesome for their next 'fuck these super-powered-freaks' away-day) might have made them switch it off, but Clint's not kidding himself that anyone else will have done the same. He thinks of all the assholes at SHIELD who never liked him anyway, handed all the ammo they need to patronise him rather than just dislike him. _Fuck_.

He knows he should be more worried that his cover is fucking blown now. That as anything less than an Avenger, he has no place left in the world. A small part of him is reeling from that, wondering how many people have put a name to his face now, and are planning whatever revenge they see fit. But mainly he's thinking about the others, and what they'll think of him now. Because yeah, they know he grew up in the circus, and they know that because he's talked about it, spun stories about how it was awesome, made his life out to be like something from a book: always moving on and conning townies and riding elephants and yeah, Clint did all that stuff, but he did it in between beatings and fear, and he did it all with a little voice whispering in his ear, _no one fucking wants you_.

He knows Natasha is handling him with kid gloves, because he hears her arriving. He knows it shouldn't, but it pisses him off. If Natasha, of all people, feels the need to coddle him, he doesn't even want to know how anyone else will react. He fires off a few more arrows to clear his mind, and it's only after he's done that she speaks.

"Smart, really," she says. "Triple bluff. They made it look like it was me at first."

"Yeah?" Clint asks, and he wants to rip someone's fucking head off just for the thought of it.

"Yeah. Only woman on a team of men. Some people see that as a weakness," she says, poker-faced.

"Imagine," Clint says in the same blank tone.

"So SHIELD dug a little deeper and then it looked like Stark. And, well. Seems like they knew exactly how Mr Ego would react."

"Right," Clint has to agree. "Smart."

She shifts her weight onto her left foot, hip resting against the doorframe. "Clint – "

"Don't, Nat. Just – if it's not about beating something up or shooting it full of arrows, okay, I don't wanna talk about it."

Her lips press into a line for a split second before she squeezes his shoulder and says, "Okay. I'll leave you, then."

And because they can read each other by now, he knows that will be the last time she ever mentions it. 

The next time Clint looks at anything other than a target, Coulson is sitting behind him, working on a tablet. Clint is weirdly grateful that he didn't announce his presence, isn't treating Clint like – like the fucked up, anxious child that just got described to the world.

"You here to tell me to stop?" Clint asks.

Coulson leans back in his seat. "Putting holes in Stark's property? In your own time, Barton."

Clint laughs humourlessly and looses another arrow at the wall. He'd swear he can feel the impact in his own body, a jolt that makes him think _everything is okay_ , always, always, no matter that everyone who wants to know all his bullshit now knows it (because that is how YouTube works). He's fucking Hawkeye and nothing ever – 

But he can imagine the host talking about that too, can hear it in his head all too clearly. Doubtless they've got a story about exactly how he came by the name, and because these motherfuckers cannot let him have _anything_ , it's probably the truth. Clint lowers his bow and turns to look at Coulson.

"There were sudden technical faults," Coulson says, admirably straight-faced. "Only the first fifteen minutes aired."

"Thanks," Clint grunts, although it makes precisely nothing better. Coulson shrugs like he knows that and starts flicking through his tablet. Clint tries to go back to target practice, wondering exactly what they could have covered in fifteen minutes. Plenty, he decides. And all the worst of it, too. Maybe not _the worst_ to an outside observer, but to Clint, yeah. Incarceration and whatever else was just a logical progression from a shitty start, but now the whole damn world knows that Clint's own fucking parents didn't want him – actively disliked him and Barney both, from when even Clint, who knows jack shit about kids, knows they can't have done anything to deserve it. 

It's like DNA or fingerprinting. It's something that's _in_ him, all over him, and people can see it, have always been able to see it, and some goddamn talk show splashes it all everywhere when Clint is managing to do actual, measurable good for the first time in his fucking excuse for a life.

"How the fuck does Stark deal with this?" Clint demands when it becomes clear Coulson isn't going anywhere.

"Pretty sure he's at least fifty percent Teflon," Coulson says and Clint can't help a huff of laughter.

"I just – " Clint collapses his bow and takes the bottle of water Coulson extends to him. He drinks half of it and then it's like a dam bursting and he says, "There's kids out there now, kids in the system, kids like me, and they're thinking it'll be okay, cause one day you'll be a superhero, and it's _bullshit_. It's lies."

"That bothers you?" Coulson asks after a silent moment. "Kids in the system?"

"When they're being trained to expect someone to _fix_ their shitty lives, yeah! They gotta learn to fix themselves."

Coulson's quiet for a moment and then says, "If you're serious – well, I'll just point out you have the ear of one of the richest men in the country, and an internationally renowned do-gooder."

_Huh_ , Clint thinks, but he says, "Don't try to act cool, Coulson. Everyone knows you love Cap's shiny hair, and his shiny teeth, and his shiny, shiny medals."

Coulson's fanboy crush on Steve hasn't disappeared any, even after finally getting his damn trading cards signed. It's a source of endless amusement to everyone but Cap and Coulson, who resolutely refuse to acknowledge it. 

Except right then, Coulson does exactly that, shifts in his chair and says, totally inflectionless, "Whatever, Barton. Even if that was true, you're still my primary asset."

It's not technically true. Coulson isn't _anyone's_ handler anymore, he's kind of... Well. Superhero Super Nanny is what he gets called most often, but Clint thinks his official title is SHIELD liaison to The Avengers Initiative. Whatever, Clint hears the stuff Coulson means but isn't saying: You (and Clint includes Natasha in that because the three of them were a team and a family – not exactly nuclear, but whatever – before the Avengers was even an idea) are still my number one priority.

Clint feels a complicated mixture of things on hearing that, and at least some of it must show on his face, because Coulson sighs, as frustrated as he ever allows himself to sound, and says, "Barton. Do you think I didn't know?"

Clint freezes up, because he _had_ thought that, and he's only now realising just how fucking stupid he was. Of course Coulson knows. Of course SHIELD knows, of course they have planned his whole life around that since he came in. How best to manage him. How to motivate him with just the right nods to separated siblings and miserable children and ways to make himself necessary.

"I've always known. You are not your past, Barton. You are so much more than the sum of the things you've experienced."

What the fuck is Clint meant to say to that? Really? 

He's got nothing, except the thing he always has, except when he lifts his bow, his hands are shaking again and he feels a sudden surge of useless anger. His hands don't fucking _shake_. He takes a long deep breath, and then another. It doesn't help. He just holds his bow loosely in one hand until the tremor is gone. The third time he empties his quiver and looks around, Coulson is gone.

*

For the next two days, Clint pretty much just gets drunk and shoots arrows.

The day after _that,_ the following things happen:

1\. Fury fires three people from the records department. (Clint hopes he uses his secret stash of Men in Black level shit – don't even try to persuade Clint it doesn't exist – to leave them as hobos in Saskatchewan with a single solitary buck to their names. Better yet, like, five pesos just to really fuck with their minds.)  
2\. Tony buys the network (no, seriously) and takes the show off the air. If Tony gets his way, and he usually does, it will be replaced by something currently only titled 'robot sitcom'.  
3\. Natasha lets him shoot actual arrows at her – real live target practice against the very best – no less than three times.  
4\. Oh, and Coulson asks him out. To dinner. On a date. (He is really fucking specific about that, no room for creative misunderstandings after the fact.) Also, calls him Clint for the first time when neither of them are bleeding.

Hell of a week.

**Author's Note:**

> Also available [@lj](http://leashy-bebes.livejournal.com/352000.html)


End file.
